Change your password..again!

I hate those messages “your password will expire in X days” as much as you, but one of the simplest ways to protect ourselves is to keep your passwords as robust ad secret as possible.

I’m not going to repeat what is always reminded:

• Do not write them on paper.
• Do not use the names of your children, pet or your date of birth as your password.
• Do not use only letters.
• Do not use passwords shorter than 6 characters …

.. because we already know all this, right?

So today let’s think about how to devise our own password creation system.

There are third-party applications (some free) that help you manage so many different passwords. But the ideal is to create a proprietary system that allows you to remember them forever, even if you change the passwords regularly.

I remember a friend once told me she used the first letters of each of the words of a saying and this rule is still one of the ones I like the most. Let us see an example: “God helps those who help themselves” would be GHTWHT.

Another type of logic is easy to choose something that you really like, for example music, and remember the name of your favorite band, the lead singer and his favorite song and put them together in a single word, and presto! We have a password: U2BONOONE

Or the name of your favorite writer and his fetish book, if you are into literature: TOMSHARPWILT. Or your first car registration, model and color: 1564ATHA3BLUE

Finally, it is easy to make some alchemy, put words together and create strong passwords that we can update every so often.

Do you have a system of your own to set up and manage your passwords?